Stone and a Hard Place (25 page)

She looked uncertain. “We’re not in any kind of danger, are we?”

“No.”
Not yet.
“Go on—get back in bed. No need for you to be cold. I’ll be in shortly.”

It was obvious she didn’t want to go, but she took one last look at him, nodded, and left the bathroom.

Stone stood for a moment gripping the sink, staring at his sunken-eyed, corpse-pale reflection in the mirror. What the hell was that thing
doing?
How could it reach out to him from such a distance? If it could do that, then it had to be even more powerful than he’d feared.

He met his reflection’s eyes. Standing there at nearly two in the morning, bruised and sweating and tired in both his mind and his body, he wondered how he ever thought he was going to be able to fight this thing.

I don’t really have a choice, though, do I? If I don’t do it, who will?

He pushed off the sink and turned on the shower. He didn’t have an answer for that question. He might be able to call in some other mages—doubtful on such short notice, even with the portals—but so few of them nowadays were equipped to deal with these kinds of threats. There were still a fair number in this country, in England, in Europe, but most of them never pursued the Art this far anymore. It just took too much effort, too much time to really get good at it, and most of them would never even come near the kinds of threats that required Stone’s level of magical ability to combat. Most of them contented themselves with learning a few techniques, enough to make their lives easier, and let it go at that. He’d be sending them to their deaths if he asked them to fight something like this with no preparation. “You’re a dinosaur,” he told his reflection, then got into the shower.

Megan was waiting for him when he came out, towel wrapped around his waist and damp hair sticking up in all directions. “Better?” she asked.

“Much.” He noticed that she must have gone downstairs, because there was the most beautiful bottle of Scotch in the world sitting on the nightstand. “Ah, Megan, you
are
brilliant.”

“Thought you might like that.” She poured him a glass and handed it over.

He drank it down, reveling in the feeling of the burning liquid as it warmed him all the way down. “Just what the doctor ordered,” he said with a satisfied sigh, crawling back into bed and tossing the towel on the floor. He turned to her and gave her a tired smile. “Thank you, Megan. For everything.”

She tousled his hair. “Now you have to take me to that party, you know. You owe me one for tonight. Just because you don’t have long hair to hold doesn’t mean it’s not the same idea.”

He nodded, realizing that it didn’t matter anyway. He wasn’t keeping her safe by refusing to take her to the ball. If that thing in Adelaide’s basement got out, she wouldn’t be safe wherever she was. What had it said?
“I’ll kill everyone you ever cared about.”
Better to keep her close by, where he could keep an eye on her. “I’d be honored. You might even convince me to dance.”

“Let’s not go
too
far,” she said, reaching over to shut off the light. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Go back to sleep. I promise not to scare you again.”

“See that you don’t,” she murmured, moving over to snuggle close to him. He stroked her hair gently until she dropped off to sleep a few minutes later.

He himself lay awake for the remainder of the night.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Stone picked up Ethan in San Jose on Thursday afternoon. He only had one final to administer that day, so they got an early start. They boy climbed into the Jaguar’s front seat and tossed his ubiquitous backpack in the back.

“So, ghost hunting again,” he said as Stone drove off.

“Nothing so exciting, I’m afraid,” he said. “Mostly information hunting today. But I do want to show you where the spirit is imprisoned, in case I need to send you down there on Saturday. That, and I want to reinforce my defenses again.”

Ethan nodded and settled back, appearing deep in thought. Stone glanced at him a couple of times as he drove, still convinced that something was going on with him that he was keeping secret. He wanted to ask about it, but right now he didn’t have the time or the energy to deal with the inevitable defensiveness it would cause.

He was still curious about where Ethan had learned the trick with the circle, but it wasn’t like it was anything particularly impressive or dangerous. It was a simple technique taught to every student of circle-casting. In fact it was possible—not likely, but possible—that Ethan had just picked it up instinctively on his own. Stone himself hadn’t, but he’d known a couple of mages who had an inherent affinity for circles and were able to do things like that even before being taught. Maybe that was where Ethan’s talent lay. He made a mental note to investigate it further after Saturday, but for now it had to be a lower priority.

They reached Adelaide’s house around 1:30. Again, Stone had to show his ID to the patrolling security guard, and introduced Ethan as his assistant. The guard waved them through, and before long they were sitting in Adelaide’s living room with cups of hot coffee delivered by Iona.

“I know you want to get right to it,” Adelaide said, “But I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am that you’re doing this for us, Dr. Stone. It means so much to me. This is a horrible thing, but I have every confidence that you’ll be able to take care of it.”

“You have more confidence than I do, Adelaide,” Stone said. “But I’ll do my best to make sure that your party isn’t disturbed by anything supernatural.”

They got away as soon as they politely could, and Stone led Ethan down to the basement. The boy looked around nervously as they went through the room with the towering stacks of furniture. “This stuff looks like it could fall on us any minute.”

Stone nodded. “Yes, and I think has done in the past,” he added, indicating the ruined player piano. “I wish I’d taught you a shield, but there’s no helping it now. Just look sharp and keep your wits about you. I’m hoping that I’ve got that thing locked up tight enough that it won’t be able to pull off any more shenanigans, but never take that for granted.”

He pulled open the secret bookcase door and motioned Ethan inside. For a moment the boy could do nothing but stare. “Wow,” he breathed. “That is some circle.”

“It is indeed. You need a big circle to deal with a big spirit like this. But we don’t have time to stay here and study it—the attic calls. Just take a look at the creature’s prison magically, and watch while I add a few touches to the barriers I’ve put up.”

Ethan did as he was told. After Stone finished, he followed him back out of the room and Stone slid the heavy door shut behind them.

Upstairs, they found Adelaide again: she was in the sitting room with Iona, watching a soap opera. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said from the doorway, “but can you show us how to get into the attic?”

“Of course,” Iona said with a small shudder. “I’m glad it’s you and not me going up there, though. There are all sorts of nasty things. I hate spiders. Please be careful.”

She took them up to the third floor, down a side hall to a nondescript door. “It’s up there,” she said. “You should be able to reach the whole thing—it’s mostly a big open space, with a few smaller areas. I don’t know if the furniture and stuff have shifted around, though. You might have trouble getting through some of it.”

“Do the lights work?” Stone asked, eyeing the bag of gear Ethan was carrying, which included two heavy-duty flashlights and a lamp.

“They should.”

Well, that was something. “All right, then. Let’s go.” He opened the door and mounted the narrow staircase. Ethan followed him.

At the top was another door. Stone shoved it open and stepped into the attic, moving aside to let Ethan in. They stood near a wall; Stone hunted around until he found a light switch and flipped it. To his surprise, several naked bulbs high overhead blazed to life. It wasn’t much light for such a large space and it created more eerie shadows than illuminated areas, but at least they could see where they were going.

“Hold on to that bag,” Stone ordered. “You’ll need the lights when we separate to search. If the overheads go out, I can make my own light if I need to. That’s another thing I have to teach you soon,” he added as an afterthought, his mind already on the task ahead.

He began walking forward, then stopped. “That’s odd...”

“What?”

Stone pointed at the floor. “There’s a lot of dust up here. But look there—looks like recent footprints. Somebody’s been up here, and not too long ago. Wonder who it was.”

Ethan shrugged. “Maybe one of the workmen?”

“Probably,” Stone agreed. “I doubt Iona would come up here, and in any case those are definitely a man’s prints. Come on—let’s see where they go.”

They followed the footprints, which were quite easy to see in the thick dust. They didn’t go far: they’d only walked for a couple of minutes before the prints veered off to the right and stopped at the end of a jumbled pile of random furniture. A large, wooden-framed mirror stood there next to the crumpled form of the sheet that had obviously covered it until recently.

Stone stopped, examining the mirror. “Not dusty,” he said. “Whoever was up here, it was definitely recent, and it looks like they pulled the cover off this. I wonder why.”

“Dunno,” Ethan said. “Maybe they were looking for stuff to sell, and thought it was something else?”

Stone leaned in for a closer look. “There doesn’t seem to be anything odd about this...” He shifted to magical senses. “Interesting...”

“Interesting?”

He nodded. “There are traces of magical energy around it. Very faint, but they’re there.”

“Are mirrors magical?” Ethan asked.

“Not inherently. I’ve seen a couple of enchanted ones, but this one doesn’t seem to be enchanted...just seems like something magical might have occurred near it recently.” He looked down at the footprints again, then shook his head. “Another mystery I’d like to get to the bottom of, but it’ll have to wait until later. We need to get on with this.”

He turned back around and shooed Ethan out to the main aisleway. “All right,” he said, glancing around. “You go left, I’ll go right. Look for bookcases, chests, anything that might contain books or papers or anything like that. Use your magical sight, but unless it’s got words on it or it’s glowing with magic, I’m not interested in it. If you see anything that looks likely, grab it if you can, otherwise mark where it was and come find me. All right?”

Ethan nodded. “Okay. Anything specific I’m looking for?”

“If you find anything with the name ‘Selena Darklight’ on it or anything that looks like it might be the name of that thing downstairs, call me right away. Other than that, just use your discretion. You know what magical texts look like. We don’t have time for a thorough search, so we’ll have to do what we can. Meet me back here in a couple of hours and we’ll decide what to do from there.”

Ethan hefted his backpack over his shoulder, picked up the bag Stone had given him, and set off. It was cold up here; he was glad he’d worn his parka. He hoped he would be able to find something—ideally he would run across something that he could show Stone along with information he could take back to Trin.

He had no idea what she and the others wanted to do with the thing downstairs; in fact, the thought made him a little nervous. From what Stone was saying, it sounded like whatever it was, it was incredibly powerful. Did they want to try to control it? He didn’t think they’d be interested in sending it back; that didn’t seem like their style. But he wondered if they had any idea how powerful it was. Even the small glimpse he’d gotten today had shown him it wasn’t something to be trifled with. Did Trin and her friends have the power to deal with it? Stone was powerful and he obviously was concerned about being able to handle it—that’s why he kept adding bits to its prison like a desperate homeowner nailing up new scraps of wood over his window.

He remembered what Trin had told him, though, about how she and Miguel and Oliver were good at joining their power together and making things happen. Individually they might not be as strong as Stone, but together? Besides, it wouldn’t just be the three of them. He’d be there, too. He wouldn’t be much help yet, but every little bit added to the shared power.

Picking his way over bits of broken furniture, rusting toys, and piles of ancient, yellowing magazines, he wondered if he was even going to have a chance to find anything. The attic was huge, and there was
so
much junk up here! Who let stuff accumulate like this? It wasn’t like they were ever going to use it again.

He turned back to see if he could still spot Stone. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the mage’s light spell bobbing away from him, far off in the distance. He hoped Stone wouldn’t find the information first—if it was even here to find.

Time passed, and he grew increasingly discouraged. He’d poked through the drawers in dusty dressers, opened chests, examined bookcases, pulled apart piles of haphazard, broken objects, looked inside armoires, and even gone through a pile of brittle movie magazines he found in a corner. He’d encountered countless spiders, mice (and evidence of where mice had been), the skeletons of three small creatures that might have been large rats or small raccoons, and more dust than he wanted to see again for the rest of his life. He’d resorted to pulling up his T-shirt to cover his mouth and nose to keep from breaking out in coughing fits. A couple of times from far off in the distance he heard Stone coughing as well.

He glanced at his watch: almost 4:00. It was getting close to Stone’s two-hour mark, but he’d almost reached the end of a pile of junk and he wanted to finish checking it. He knew he’d have to head back soon: evening visiting hours at the hospital started at 5:30, and he wanted to see his mother that evening. For him to have time to get home, clean up, and get to the hospital, he’d have to leave no later than 4:30. He stepped up his pace, tossing aside junk until his arms grew sore, but found nothing. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair in an unconscious imitation of Stone’s habitual gesture.

He’d have to accept it: maybe there was just nothing here to find. Disheartened, he trudged back toward where he and Stone had first separated.

Idly as he got closer, he thought of the footprints again, wondering where they’d come from. They seemed oddly familiar somehow, but he had no idea why. He’d certainly never been up here before; he’d remember if he had. But there was something about that mirror—

And then a thought came to him. The kind of thought that made you smack your head and go, “Of
course!
”

His breath quickened, as did his pace. He had about ten minutes before Stone was due back at the rendezvous point. Would it be enough time?

Arriving back at the footprints, he followed them to the mirror. It was taller than he was, intricately carved and very fancy. It also looked quite heavy. It hadn’t even occurred to Stone to try to move it. But what if—

He took hold of one side of it and pulled.

Nothing happened.

Disappointment washed over him. He’d been so sure! He moved over, took hold of the other side, and pulled again.

The mirror swung toward him.

Ethan grinned. “Yes!” he whispered, pumping his fist. Quickly he slipped behind it and pulled it back to its original position.

There was no secret room here, no fancy ritual circle or anything like that. Just a continuation of the same pathway through the junk. But at the end of it, his gaze immediately fell on a small stack of books and papers piled in an untidy heap on the floor. He hurried over and dropped to his knees, picking up the first book and examining it.

It was small, the size of a diary, bound in cracked red leather. There was some kind of strange sigil on the front of it, and a lock holding it shut. He turned it sideways, and on the edge of the pages he could see something written. Pulling his flashlight close, he shone it down and was rewarded by the initials “S. D.”

Selena Darklight!

It was all Ethan could do not to whoop in elation. He turned to make sure Stone wasn’t coming up behind him, then stashed the little book in the inner pocket of his parka. He was sure Trin would very much like to see it. And she would be very happy with him for delivering it.

Quickly he turned his attention to the other books and papers. There weren’t many papers; they contained diagrams of circles and densely packed handwritten text that was nearly impossible to read. None of the rest of the books looked like diaries: they were all large, thick, leatherbound tomes, and all of them had the look of magic to them. He picked up a couple and riffled through their pages. They looked very old, but professionally printed, not written in someone’s hand. He couldn’t make out much of what they were about because they weren’t written in English, but by the diagrams it seemed like they had something to do with summoning. Unfortunately, all but two of them were too big to fit in his backpack. He stuffed those two in along with the papers, but there wasn’t anything he could do about the rest of them.